BE OUR GUEST: THE AARP MADE COLOSSAL, MISTAKE ON HELATH-REFORM STAND

The American Association of Retired Persons rarely apologizes or explains. Confident that it has tens of millions of members, the AARP behaves like an emperor, handing down its verdicts on public issues as though it were Joseph Stalin or some similar dictator. Fortunately every now and then reality intrudes and makes plain to all that the AARP does not speak for senior citizens, but rather for an extreme liberal ruling clique that won power in a coup d'etat a few years ago.

Fortunately from time to time the AARP gets its comeuppance and is put back in touch with reality. That is what happened last summer in an incident reported in an Associated Press dispatch last Aug. 12:

"Calls from angry senior citizens clogged switchboards at the American Association of Retired Persons today after the group's board of directors stated its support for Democratic health care bills.

"Most of the callers were incensed that the president of the association, Eugene Lehrmann, without first surveying the group's 33 million member announced support for {health care reform} bills sponsored by {Democrats} George J. Mitchell of Maine, the Senate majority leader, and Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the House majority leader."

There were thousands of protest phone calls from angry seniors, enough of a revolt to force the AARP to spend thousands of dollars of our money in expensive newspaper ads to defend its position. It bought a full page in the Washington Post, roughly a half page in the New York Times, and probably space in other papers I didn't see.

The AARP explanation was a claim it was making a tradeoff, accepting new cuts in Medicare in exchange for a beginning on a long-term care program for the severely disabled and for a drug program. The advertisements wasted much space in large headlines and empty space, carefully failing to spell out the details of the supposed benefits. This was a calculated deception since the benefits aren't so beneficial.

But in any case who gave the AARP the right to claim it speaks for all senior citizens, or even for its 33 million members? Those of us who belong to it, as I do, belong for the mail prescription program and other benefits. We don't think of it as a political organization and we certainly haven't given it the right to speak for us.

Moreover anybody who knows anything about the supposed benefits knows they will be frauds. The prescription drug program will focus on old drugs, generics, and try to deny us the best and recent pharmaceutical discoveries. Long term care for the disabled is such an expensive proposition it will never be implemented regardless of the politicians' promises.

But both the Mitchell and Gephardt bills - each an attempt to save what could be saved of President Clinton's poorly thought out health reform program - would make it more difficult for most of us to get the care we need, or see the doctor and use the hospital we want. Either bill would be the most radical and fundamental shakeup of our health care system in history.

At the best the AARP is certainly guilty of stupidity. It doesn't seem to realize that for us seniors the highest priority health care goal is to stop the merciless cuts in the Medicare budget which are making us less and less desirable customers for doctors and hospitals, reducing us to the level of Medicaid patients who most doctors won't see. Yet the AARP defended more Medicare budget cuts as a "tradeoff."

Politically, of course, the outcome was delicious. The AARP's impotence on this issue was exposed for all to see. Despite its endorsement and the appeal in its newspaper ads that we all call our congressmen and senators to demand the passage of the Mitchell and Gephardt bills, both of those measures have now faded into history. The decision to give congress a Labor Day recess meant there will be no comprehensive health reform passed by congress this year.

So why did the AARP take this ill-advised measure which angered and still angers so many senior citizens? I can only guess it was an effort to curry favor with the Clinton ministration which was desperate for some sign of mass public support and welcomed the AARP statement. But of course neither the public as a whole nor senior citizens want or wanted the Clinton health reform fantasies which could ruin the best health system in the world.

The whole sad incident illustrated that what is needed is genuinely democratic (with a small d) control of the AARP by its members, not today's liberal dictatorship.

Dr. Schwartz, now 75 years old, was a member of the New York Times editorial board for almost 30 years. Since his retirement, he has written often for the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. He has also published more than 20 books.